


Once More Unto the Beach

by Tierfal



Category: Death Note, Doctor Who
Genre: Crack, Crossover, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Master hates sand.  And pretty much everything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once More Unto the Beach

**Author's Note:**

> Beware spoilers through DW S3 and the entirety of DN!
> 
> This was written for my beautiful separated-at-birth-twin, Hiza_Chan, under advisement from Eltea, who is an evil genius. <3
> 
> The prompt was:  
>  _the Master and the Doctor or Matt and Mello at the beach, or a multifandom beach party_

“You are the only person I know who could be disappointed about going to the _beach_ ,” the Doctor says.

“You are acquainted with at least three Oblarvians,” the Master says, “and they dissolve in saltwater.”

The Doctor ignores that tidbit of wisdom.  “Last time I took Martha to the beach, she was almost strangled by a sentient giant squid, and she _still_ said it was a good trip.  You really ought to change your sense of perspective.”

“I voted for the Caribbean,” the Master reminds him.

“This is not a democracy,” the Doctor says.  “And it wouldn’t work if it was; you would always vote against me just to be contrary, and we’d never get a majority.”

“I could cut you in half,” the Master offers, rather generously.

The Doctor rolls his eyes and dons a very silly-looking straw hat.  “Come _on_.  You’ll like it.”

“I despise the Pacific Ocean,” the Master says.  He wrinkles his nose and steps out into the sun, and his dress shoes sink discouragingly into the sand.  “I used it as a dumping ground for radioactive waste to get my revenge.”

“That’s because you’re an unthinking, insensitive, destructive git,” the Doctor says calmly, strolling—as much as one can stroll in those ridiculous no-backed-toe-strangling sandal things—towards the water, his slightly frayed but persevering Gallifreyan tote bag slung over his shoulder.

The Master can’t really argue with that statement.

The Doctor trots out to an open place on the beach, sets the bag down, and commences digging through it and retrieving items.  It’s still a bit on the early side, meaning that the fog hasn’t burnt off, meaning in turn that the beach is still relatively quiet—but for a scattering of brave surfers further down, a man running with a leashed dog, and a young boy whose mother has her sunscreen-coated nose buried in a trashy novel.  The boy watches, eyes growing progressively larger, as the Doctor takes three gaudy beach towels, a picnic basket, an inflated beach ball, and a five-foot-tall umbrella out of a bag smaller than a suitcase.  The Master vaguely recalls a scene from “Mary Poppins” that will now probably cause their young observer to run screaming away from his television.

Children should spend less time sitting in front of that thing anyway.  And the fleeing in terror will be good exercise.

The Master feels ever so slightly accomplished.

When the Doctor lays out the towels and stabs the umbrella into the sand, the Master sits down in the precise center of the space, folds his arms, and frowns.

“You could at least take off your shoes,” the Doctor says.

“Or I could sit here and wait for you to die,” the Master says.

The Doctor shrugs, turns to the bag, and rummages for a small collection of plastic buckets and molds.  He then saunters further down the beach, kneels among the damp sand touched by the greediest waves, and begins construction of an extremely ambitious sandcastle.

The Master sighs for a full twenty-five seconds—which requires a bit of assistance from the respiratory bypass but is worth the trouble—and settles down to wait until the Doctor’s attention span wears out, donning his glossy oversized sunglasses so that he can at least look good while he suffers.

Because he is an exceedingly brilliant, talented, handsome, and horrendously stubborn individual, the Master maintains his foul mood even when the sun breaks through, sparking on the blue-green white-frosted waves, gleaming on the wet sand, and making the Doctor’s overbearingly brightly-colored Hawaiian shirt downright blinding.  The Master is aided in his quest for curmudgeonliness by the way the sand in his shoes has begun to itch and by the fact that the sunshine draws humans to Santa Cruz like fruit flies to a molding banana.  By noon, the beach is crawling with overexposed bodies, pocked by sandaled footsteps, and wracked with the screams of children who have forgotten since their last visit that the water is forty degrees Fahrenheit at the very most.

As the sun attempts to melt the Master’s knees—tonight he’ll develop an elaborate plan to blow it up in recompense—he watches the waves ebb and crinkle, surging up the beach to hiss around the Doctor’s ankles where the penultimate Time Lord mucks about the shallows, starting splash wars with eight-year-olds. It is not an altogether unpleasant viewing experience, in part because the Doctor keeps getting slapped in the face with seawater, which must burn more than a bit. The Master settles his elbows on the towel behind him and leans back, smirking as the Doctor gets a stream of cold water in the face and starts howling and swiping at his eyes.

The Master supposes that maybe the Pacific Ocean can catch a break this time.

The Doctor trots back up the beach not long later and hunkers down to sort through the picnic basket. Momentarily, he hands the Master something wrapped in tinfoil.

“What the hell is this?” the Master asks politely.

“A peanut butter and banana sandwich,” the Doctor answers, as if this is remotely normal in any universe. “Elvis liked his with bacon in, but I thought that was a bit much.”

The Master drops it back in the basket.

The Doctor frowns at him. “You really should be more open-minded.”

A neon green frisbee hits the Doctor in the side of the head.

He drops senselessly to the sand, which scatters everywhere around the impact.

The Master scrambles over with appropriate speed, such that only his characteristically deft tongue allows him to pack two and a half Gallifreyan profanities into the time.  On hands and knees—and not in the way he likes best—he leans down to listen at the Doctor’s mouth. Supporting the well-developed theory that one cannot, in fact, kill the Doctor except with a great deal of luck and practice, the bastard is still breathing steadily.

By the time the Master has prised both eyelids open to make sure that the Doctor’s pupils are the same size—he wouldn’t be remotely surprised if the Doctor has incurred serious brain injury and nonetheless refused to die, though today he seems to be saving that trick for another occasion—a young man with very bright red hair and very loud checkered swim trunks has run flailing up the beach towards them.

“Holy crap!” the newcomer blurts out.

The Master is already entertaining notions of how best to kill him.

“I’m so sorry!  Is he okay?  Jesus!”

The Doctor manages to get the savior reaction even when he isn’t conscious.  The Master is grudgingly impressed.

“He’s dead,” the Master says.

The redhead’s knees give out, and he drops to the sand, his eyes so huge with horror that the Master thinks his face may disappear beneath them.

“Oh, my _Go_ … wait, but he’s totally breathing.”

“Fancy that,” the Master says.  “I guess you won’t be going to prison for manslaughter—just for assault and battery.  That’s… what… six months’ jail time?  You lucky dog.”

The redhead stares at him in a rather tickling combination of terror, dismay, and disbelief, with a pinch of sheer bewilderment thrown in.

“He’s just fucking with you, Matty,” a newly-arrived blond announces.  He punctuates his sage wisdom by patting ‘Matty’ on the head.

The Master does not trust anyone who wears a crucifix to the beach.  He also does not trust anyone who owns sunglasses from the same collection as his.

“My lawyers will determine that,” he says.

Another boy wanders up, this one so egregiously pale that it’s a wonder he hasn’t spontaneously combusted in the sunlight.  When he arrives—before the blond can stop rolling his eyes and retort—he tilts his white head and sits down next to Matty.

“Weren’t you Prime Minister?” he asks in a strangely disinterested voice—strange primarily because the Master cannot comprehend the idea that anyone would not be interested in him.  “Only very briefly, but you managed to kill the President, not that he didn’t deserve it.”

The Master may like this one.

“Who in the _hell_ are you people?” he asks.

“Just some kids,” the blond one says.  “Who happen to be geniuses.  Who happened to save the world from becoming a soulless, fear-driven dystopia a few months back.”

The Master grimaces.  There are far too many individuals who meet that description these days.

Sadly, he doesn’t have a chance to inform them that he probably tracked them down specifically in order to murder them once upon a non-year—the Doctor groans, rolls halfway over, and pushes himself up on one elbow, holding a hand to his head.

“Is it a bruise, a bump, or a welt?” he asks.  “Oh, guess you can’t tell; I have too much hair.  That was kind of nice last time—I could assess the damage with that double-mirror trick, you know the… hullo.  Are you the owners of the frisbee that I don’t _think_ has any of my blood on it?”

And now they’re all going to be friends.  The Master _hates_ his life.

He turns to the picnic basket and asks loudly, “Did you bring rum?”

“Bottom-right corner,” the Doctor says.  “I’m the Doctor—I’m afraid I didn’t catch your names; I was a little too busy lying in the sand with my brains all sloshed.”

The Master drinks directly from the bottle. Next beach trip, he is filling the picnic basket with guns.

He’s not even tipsy—and the Doctor’s not even through “Fascinating!”-ing at the obnoxious trio’s little story of woe and redemption—when a new flurry of motion attracts his attention.

A massive wave roars up the beach and crashes hard, spraying foam so wildly that a few flecks make it all the way to the Master’s sunglasses.  When the water withdraws, four fully-clothed adults lie sputtering on the beach, and something prickles under the Master’s skin.

“The next time you say ‘one more job,’ I’m poisoning your drink,” one of the men declares.

“For once—and only once—I’m with him,” a slightly younger one says.

“Come on,” the last one manages, staggering to his feet and running a hand through his sopping hair.  “We worked like a machine last time.”

The two men look to the young woman, whose own hair is draggled with sand.

“Fuck you, Cobb,” she says.


End file.
